free cell phone +$50 from Amazon.com EASY DEAL

[djheater]

Needed a phone for the wifey.... here's the deal as posted at Amazon (it's nice when they are complicitous in our misering )
You do have to sign up for a one year plan...250 minutes + 500 nights and weekends blah, blah, blah.....
Details on the one year plan...This link includes a session ID for Lombard, IL... they offer good coverage in Chicago, you'll have to do your own research on the rest of the country

The reviews on this phone are good.....

Specifics of the deal
{quote from Amazon.com}
Get the Ericsson R289LX for free and get $50 back by following these steps:

Step 1: Buy the Ericsson R289LX from Amazon.com for $99.99.

Step 2: Receive a $50 rebate from AT&T Wireless.

Fill out and mail-in the rebate form.
You must sign a 1-year service contract with AT&T Wireless.
Rebate should arrive within 8 weeks.
Step 3: Receive a $50 rebate from Ericsson.

Fill out and mail-in the rebate form.
You must sign a 1-year service contract with AT&T Wireless.
Rebate should arrive within 8 weeks.
Step 4: Take advantage of our $50 instant-savings offer.

You must make your purchase using the Shopping Cart. Rebate will not be applied to 1-Click orders.
You must enter AMZNCELLPHNE in the claim-code field on the order form.
Step 5: Soak in the savings ($99.99 original price - $50 AT&T rebate - $50 Ericcson rebate - $50 Amazon.com instant savings = Free R289LX and $50 back).
{/qoute}

 

[Hgabriel]

Contracts are too difficult to deal with. The whole idea of a "No Signal Guarantee" is enough to scare me away. I am currently under contract with Cingular until November. I cannot get a signal worth dick. The only place I get a signal is in my car, and that may be illegal soon.

AT ALL COSTS, AVOID ALL CONTRACTS LONGER THAN 6 MONTHs

 

[djheater]

I can appreciate your point. On the other hand both my wife and I are far to lazy to try and coordinate buying minutes every month, we'd inevitably screw ourselves.
I have a few friends who have AT&T here and they have no complaints so.... I bit.
I'll agree it's gonna be regional.
Make sure you check out their coverage for your area before you buy and if possible ask people and see if anyone has experience with them in your area. Common sense.

~Edit
Did I mention it has basic web-browsing and text messaging for free, and you can upgrade those packages to include stuff like e-mail for like $7 bucks a month....

 

[codeyf]

I work at att wireless, used to work for AirTouch (now verizon). Tell ya, you'd be hard pressed to find a service w/no contract with out at least having to purchase your equip full price. Only major carrier I can think of that had/has no contracts is Sprint, but last I heard about that was a while ago, so it may have changed since then.

Pretty much every carrier has a 30-day or so return period that you can return the stuff no prob. So the whole contract thing is a mute point. If the service is to your satisfaction, odds are you'll stick with them for at least a year, so might as well get the free phone! And believe me, the 289 for free is a good deal. If I wanted to buy it, it'd run me somewhere along the lines of $180. As an employee, I get a company phone for free, but I don't get to choose it, whatever is available is given to me. If I want anything else, to buy it thru work is full price!

I've got the R280, which is a little older than the 289. The 289 is nice, it adds SMS capability, along with compatibility with Ericsson's "chat board." It's a small keyboard that plugs in to the bottom of the phone. Comes in handy when emailing or entering url's on the phone. That's the only thing i hate about my phone, typing on the damn numeric keypad!!

 

[mathprof]

May be a better deal to get the R280LX for one cent (with activation, of course) and get back $100 in rebates. The $50 AT&T rebate is for any phone and the $50 Ericsson rebate also applies to the R280LX. Of course, this means giving up the new features in the 289, but for the extra $50, it might be worth it.

 

[BillRubin]

There are almost no new features in the R289 -- the only one that I am aware of is two way messaging, and they charge you for the outgoing messages. And the posted deal is really no better than you can get elsewhere if you look.

Bill

 

[RobsTV]

You should check out epinions Cell Phone providers.

You will see that ATT is the worst to choose from, (lowest rated), and from my experience I agree 100%. They conned me into the R280LX, with rebates, and minutes, but after 5 months I'm more than willing to pay the $70 early cancellation fee, and go back to real service. Check out reviews of ATT by others at epinions. Usually, when these ATT free phone threads pop up here and at Fat Wallets, dozens of ATT users and ex-users pop up to complain. The ratio seems to be about 15 to 1 against ATT. Search the threads. Of course there are exceptions to this, and a few people, in a couple areas, actually can get acceptable service with ATT.

 

[shopbruin]

any provider people will have issues with it. everyone here complains about sprint pcs but i have been with them for over a year and a half and i don't have half the issues people whine about.

there are limits to all providers capabilites. so many people don't realize that.

 

[BillRubin]

I have decent service in my area with AT&T. And the R280/R289 is a good choice if you want to use the web on your phone, because AT&T does not use your plan minutes to use the Internet. If you really only care about a voice mode phone, there are much better choices.

Shameless plug (which I hope is not a problem here). I run a mailing list dedicated to the R280 and R289LX. The address:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ericsson-R280LX

If you have any questions about the phone, that's the place to ask.

Bill

 

[Bob61]

I was checking out this deal:
Wireless Deal

Same as Amazon, but $95 in your pocket instead of $50. The other interesting feature is this offer includes the AT&T Shared Advantage plan (wife and I can share minutes - 500 per month + 1000 weekend as she talks more on it than I ever do) for $59.99 a month.